


Love in the Eyes

by aliaoftwoworlds



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), for the purpose of fluffy comfort, friendly Avengers team, happy fluffy goodness, some brief hurt Tony, warning for some seriously cheesy lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 13:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliaoftwoworlds/pseuds/aliaoftwoworlds
Summary: The moment each of the Avengers realized Tony and Rhodey were in love.





	Love in the Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is quite a departure from my usual stuff, but I just wanted to write some unrepentant fluff and this is a tragically underwritten pairing. Not that I can’t understand it, for a long time I thought of Tony and Rhodey as nothing but brothers and the idea of them together was really weird to me, but I came to appreciate it a lot (likely in part due to the whole Tony/happiness thing, and who makes Tony happier than Rhodey? I recently saw a post that said something like “honestly we’d ship Tony with the person that ran him over with their car as long as they got out and apologized for it because it’s more than anyone else has done for him at this point” and honestly truuueeee). So if you can also appreciate the pairing, have some quick little fluff :)
> 
> I know canonically Tony and Pepper take their “break” sometime before CW, but for this story, shortly after Avengers 1 they decided to break up for good because it wasn’t working for them, and Tony and Rhodey got together. This story will not hate on Pepper or Tony’s relationship with her. I love canon Tony/Pepper, I just also love Rhodey/Tony (I can appreciate Rhodey/Tony/Pepper as well but probably won’t ever write it). I needed their relationship to end earlier partly for Tony and Rhodey to get together, and partly because I needed this story to be set pre-AoU in order to write with the other Avengers. I can’t handle any “team as family” stuff after that disaster (and especially after CW), so if I want to write them all being friends instead of my usual bitter stuff then I need to either set it pre-AoU or just pretend that movie didn’t happen.

**Natasha**

Natasha sees it pretty quickly once she’s infiltrated as Stark’s new PA. The position allows her to come in and out freely as she desires, perfect for watching Stark, getting a read on his personality. His illness is making him desperate, and in private moments he’s more raw than ever.

It’s one of those private moments she walks in on when she’s coming to deliver a schedule update and some documents to sign. He doesn’t seem to notice when she comes in, which surprises her. He’s trusted her quickly, particularly for someone who was so recently betrayed the way he was by Stane. The cold, calculating part of her mind can’t help but judge him for it. Laying your heart on your sleeve, trusting practically anyone to get close to you and see you in your private moments, is a weakness just waiting to be exploited. 

Exploited like she’s doing now. That’s a dangerous thought, one she crushes ruthlessly. She has no business analyzing the philosophy or morality of her missions, much less feeling guilty about them. It’s not her fault Stark is blindly trusting her, letting her in. He’s just making her job easier.

She stops in the doorway when she sees that he’s in the middle of a conversation. It’s a perfect opportunity to listen in, and when he eventually realizes she’s there, she can simply fake the hesitance of an innocent PA who didn’t want to interrupt and was awkwardly trying not to eavesdrop. 

It’s Rhodes he’s talking to, she can see the name up on the screen in front of Stark. He’s fiddling with another holographic projection as he speaks, but as far as she can tell, he isn’t actually doing anything with it. She’s somewhat surprised, for a minute, that he doesn’t pull up a video chat.

“Yeah, I’ve got it, Tony,” Rhodes is saying across the line. “Keep yourself safe out there.”

Natasha sees the slump to Stark’s shoulders, the way one hand comes up to tap anxiously on the reactor in his chest while the other idly spins the projection he’s looking at. His posture is defeated, but his voice remains steady when he replies. “Yeah,” he says quietly, “you too.” It hits her why he’s kept this conversation to a voice chat only. Much as he tries to keep up the carefree asshole playboy façade in public, and even in private most of the time, it’s really not who he is. Rhodes has known him a long time and would likely be able to see that Stark isn’t well, so Stark’s hiding his face, trying to pretend he’s not dying. It’s a surprisingly emotional gesture.

Of course, the deeply caring man who forms strong emotional attachments far too quickly isn’t what they’re looking for for SHIELD and the Avenger Initiative. Her instructions were clear; push him just enough to put him in a vulnerable position, assuming he doesn’t do it himself in his desperation, and then let SHIELD do the rest. He’ll be shown the opportunity he could have with the Avengers—the position they ultimately want him in—and then have it pulled away right as he gets a taste, just enough to convince him that he wants it. He’ll be told he hasn’t earned it and given a provisional position of some sort so that SHIELD can get some work out of him before the actual Avengers team eventually comes to fruition. And hopefully in that time, they can keep his position seeming just shaky enough to force his cooperation if he wants any hope of being accepted as part of that team.

It won’t be a difficult job. Stark’s issues have issues. The man craves affection and attention, but he’s spent his life being ignored by his father and given empty, meaningless attention from the media and those who pretended to be his friend to get at his money or power or fame. He’s learned to act up to the expectations, but it’s left him with a buried desire for validation and real affection that cripples him when it’s pushed, because he has no idea how to deal with it. Seems like the man’s only real friends are Rhodes, Potts, and his driver, and the last two are too busy to deal with him most of the time, particularly now that Stark has handed over the reins of the company to Potts.

Natasha can see the way Stark moons over Potts, how he sees a life he craves but thinks he’ll never deserve when he looks at her. He’ll continue to push her away to avoid having her reject him herself, particularly as long as he’s ill, and that’s something Natasha can use. She has several plans in place—she always does—just waiting for the right opportunity to use any of them and carry out her orders. More than one involve Potts. 

Rhodes, though… that’s a relationship she knows she can’t touch. It’s perhaps his one solid relationship right now, and that kind of solid base won’t waver when she pushes it. Stark might try to push Rhodes away as well, but Rhodes won’t have any of it. They’ve known each other too long, Rhodes spent too long looking for Stark when he was in Afghanistan, has devoted too much to this friendship already. She can see them arguing over this, getting into fights, but not the kind that’ll end their friendship. She’s not quite sure anything will do that.

Stark straightens and reaches forward to end the call. “Call me when you get back,” he says after a short pause. Rhodes agrees and Stark shuts off the audio, then sits back with his hands over his face, letting out a gusty sigh and shuddering just slightly.

That’s the moment Natasha realizes: Stark is in love with Rhodes. He probably doesn’t even realize it, himself, with the way he’s pining over Potts and all his distractions. She hasn’t seen enough of Rhodes to know if he returns the sentiment, or even if he swings that way, but she wouldn’t be surprised. 

It’s too much of an unknown to work into any potential plan of hers. For now, it’s simply information to be filed away for later, an interesting addition to her profile of Stark’s character—the personal one she’s keeping, not the one SHIELD wants to hear at the end of this assignment. Since it’s not relevant to her assignment, she ignores it. But she does wonder where it might lead.

 

**Thor**

Thor is definitely preoccupied in his last days on Midgard, before he takes his wayward brother and the Tesseract back to Asgard. Still, the teammates who fought beside him fought with bravery and valor, and they deserve his attention as well. 

Tony Stark was an enigma from the moment they met. He certainly didn’t treat Thor or Loki the way most other Earth people did, and though the pace of his speech and the constant references to things Thor was unfamiliar with threw him off, he appreciated it to a certain extent. Stark treated him like an equal, didn’t put him on a pedestal, and in some ways it made it easier to talk to him. The man was perceptive and clever, but kindhearted to a fault.

It had hurt him to see Stark fly that bomb through the portal and into the depths of space, knowing very well he most likely wouldn’t return. When he’d fallen back down, Thor had thanked the gods above. The moments after that, when they’d briefly thought Stark dead, were truly frightening. That fear made it clear that, as short a time as he’d spent among these people, they’d made a lasting impact on him. He cared about them, and he wanted to see them safe.

Even spending his life on Asgard, among all its glories, traveling between the realms and having access to so much more of the galaxy than anyone on Midgard, his first foray into deep space had left an impact on him. Looking into the great void was an experience that should be contemplated deeply, in one’s own time and when in the right frame of mind. He has no doubts that Stark is experiencing something far beyond his comprehension. But Thor is busy dealing with and worrying about Loki, why he could have done this, what it’s going to mean to bring him back to Asgard in chains. He can only hope that there is someone here, someone closer to Stark, that can help him through this.

He is there when Stark’s flame-haired lover returns to the city, coming into the Tower where the team is resting in the aftermath of the invasion. They embrace and share a soft kiss, it’s clear she’s worried about Stark, and they walk off hand in hand. Thor sees them throughout the rest of the day, already making plans for reconstruction of the Tower and cleanup of the destruction around the city, dealing with logistical challenges and making sure the other members of the team are taken care of and that Loki is effectively contained with both Thor’s technology and Stark’s own Midgardian methods. It is not the quiet contemplation that Thor expects after what happened to Stark on the other side of that portal, but he wears a smile and seems unaffected, so Thor lets it go to focus on his own concerns.

He gets a glimpse of the truth the next day, however. They all spend a tense night in the remaining solid floors of the Tower. Thor plans to take Loki back to Asgard that afternoon, after settling everything he needs to with the Midgardian leaders and securing the Tesseract. 

There are many people coming and going in the aftermath of the battle, pulled back from their normal jobs and lives by the event that’s taken place. That morning, a friend of Stark’s arrives, a soldier named Rhodes, back from duty elsewhere on the planet, one of the others tells Thor. It takes only a few seconds for Thor to understand the importance of this relationship.

The way this Rhodes reaches for Stark the second he sees him, how he takes hold of his shoulders and looks him over like one examines a lover, tells Thor already that this is the person Stark needs with him. Rhodes is seeing what no one else is, the slightly haunted look in Stark’s eyes, and he’s pulling him down and asking quietly what’s wrong.

“We’ll talk later,” Stark says, hushed, and Rhodes pulls him into a tight hug, one hand brushing lightly through his hair while Stark’s shoulders drop and he rests his head on Rhodes’ shoulder. Watching them, the truth is obvious to Thor. It may take a while, but eventually, these two will find each other. They belong together.

 

**Bruce**

Bruce tries his best not to involve himself in other people’s personal lives. He’s never been much of a nosy or extroverted person, even before the Hulk. After the Hulk, he’s often too nervous to get involved in anything. It’s not like he has many friends to be curious about, anyway.

It’s honestly a miracle that he’s been able to integrate with the Avengers at all. He knows Tony had a lot to do with it. While the rest of them were polite, doing their best to act like they didn’t mind that he could go Mr. Hyde any minute and kill them all, Tony was the only one of them to actually embrace the Hulk, to treat him like a part of Bruce that mattered, one with his own personality and feelings.

It hadn’t made just Bruce more comfortable around him, obviously. That the Hulk was willing to fight on a specific side in the battle at all was practically a miracle, but to have him actually go out of his way to catch Tony as he fell… well, it wasn’t every day the Hulk actually liked someone, and that went a long way toward keeping Bruce there after the battle was over. His instinct would have been to run, but, well, Tony’s offer sounded good.

He’s glad that he took it, and of course, incredibly grateful to Tony. Having a stable place to live, a team that actually trusted him—people he truly considers his friends—and a place to work consistently, with all the resources he could ever need courtesy of Tony, is more than he ever could have imagined, much less asked for.

He shares lab space with Tony often. Though their areas of study are usually different, occsionally they overlap, and Tony’s always curious about Bruce’s work and willing to learn and do research of his own in order to keep up. Just like he had during the invasion, except now there’s no urgent need for it—he’s just a curious person, an excellent scientist, and a good friend.

They talk, of course, when they’re in the lab together. Bruce usually works in silence, but Tony fills a lot of silences with chatter—when he’s not intensely concentrated on his own work and silent for hours at a time, that is—and Bruce has gotten used to it. But despite the talking they do, they usually don’t get too personal. Bruce never asks about those kinds of things and Tony rarely brings them up on his own.

He knows that Tony and Pepper had a few long talks about their relationship, the expectations they both had and the things they just couldn’t do for one another, after the invasion and the formation of the Avengers. It sounded like the breakup was as amicable as possible, but he still knows it hurt Tony. The silences in the lab were a little less comfortable, a little more melancholy for a while afterwards. Bruce and Tony did talk minimally about it, just enough conversation between friends to offer his condolences but not to pry. 

Tony certainly wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone willing to be with him, but Bruce knows it’s not that easy. Pepper was his friend, and knew him well. She really cared about him as a person, not just Iron Man or the owner of Stark Industries or a famous billionaire. That’s a quality that’s hard to come by in potential romantic partners, at least for someone like Tony. Still, it doesn’t seem like any of Bruce’s business, so he doesn’t ask about it.

Rhodes comes by one day when Bruce is also down in the lab, to talk to Tony about upgrades to the newest version of his own armor. He and Bruce nod polite acknowledgment to each other and Bruce goes back to his work. He’s momentarily distracted again when Tony comes over to greet Rhodes loudly, practically draping himself over the man. Rhodes just hugs him back with a fond, indulgent smile, which makes Bruce smile to himself, too, and spend a few minutes watching them despite himself.

From the beginning, Tony’s been very physical with him, touching Bruce more than anyone has since before the Hulk, which came as a shock when most people are afraid to even come too close to him. It was part of what brought him out of his shell a bit, but he doesn’t think Tony did any of it on purpose. Tony’s like that with everyone he trusts, as far as Bruce can tell. He tends to draw back from touching Pepper ever since breaking up with her, like he’s afraid of being too intimate, but he still likes to hug and elbow and touch people he’s close to; Rhodes, Happy, Bruce, and also the other Avengers, to an extent.

But something seems just a little different about the way Tony is with Rhodes. Bruce hasn’t really noticed it before—again, not one to get into other people’s business—but watching them now, he sees the way they rarely break contact, which is a lot even for Tony. Rhodes slides the arm around Tony’s shoulders down to his waist and keeps it there as Tony pulls up plans for the War Machine armor and goes through changes to them, leaning into Rhodes’s side. 

Bruce feels his eyebrows raise when Rhodes turns and gives Tony a quick kiss before they go back to their discussion. Bruce ducks his head and goes back to his work, realizing that he’s staring, though it’s not exactly like they’re trying to hide. Thinking about it, Bruce realizes that they haven’t really been trying to hide anything from any of the Avengers, as far as he can tell. He’d just never noticed before that they were together. It’s not as though it’s a point of discussion that regularly comes up.

It makes sense; if Bruce had to name the single person that Tony trusts and loves above all others, there’d be no question it’s Rhodes. Even in the relatively short time Bruce has spent around them so far, he can tell. There’s not that much difference between an intimate, close friendship and a romantic relationship—at least, there shouldn’t be, if the relationship is a good one, and there’s no doubt that this one is good, for both of them. 

It doesn’t change anything for Bruce, it doesn’t really surprise him to learn it, and it’s not like he’s going to go running off to gossip about it. It’s just another fact to know about Tony. But it does make him smile again, for Tony—it’s good to see his friend this happy.

 

**Clint**

Contrary to popular belief, at least among the Avengers, Clint’s job for SHIELD isn’t all that similar to Natasha’s. They have complementary and somewhat similar skillsets, yes, but they don’t do the same job, and they both have talents the other doesn’t. Though Clint is considered a spy as well, his job is usually long-distance recon, not interrogation or personal manipulation. He’s attentive, certainly, and not an idiot by any means, but he doesn’t constantly notice and analyze small things about people the way Nat does.

And in a personal contradiction, despite his usual attention to detail, he’s capable of missing some pretty big things, particularly when they’re about people. He doesn’t usually concern himself with other people’s problems beyond what he needs to assure himself that someone is trustworthy, so he’s used to being surprised by things that he might have noticed earlier if he’d been paying more attention to them.

He definitely expects the unexpected out of Tony at this point. Tony Stark is always full of surprises, so Clint tries not to form too many expectations about the man. He has a habit of shattering them completely, and Clint doesn’t like to feel wrong-footed by misconceptions.

Living in Tony’s Tower is a constant adventure in many ways, and now that he’s here, he wouldn’t trade this life in for anything else. In the past he usually hasn’t trusted many people beyond Nat, but now he feels like he has a real team he can actually count on. Despite the circumstances that brought them together and some of the tension between them at the start, they’ve settled in into a comfortable camaraderie.

They’ve learned many of each other’s quirks and issues, living together like they are. Everyone can tell the days when they need to give Bruce more space, and they all know his favorite kinds of tea by now. Nat has a habit of strapping knives to the underside of every available surface—much to Tony’s aggravation, who complains about the expensive furniture, and also Bruce’s, who maintains that one day he’s going to accidentally stab himself. By now the others have all learned, and expressed their annoyance about, the fact that Tony and Clint have discovered a shared love of cheesy 90s horror films, and love to bring them out on movie nights and quote them constantly in front of the others.

Clint’s learned some things about Tony, of course. He knows that Tony will provide just about anything he thinks anyone needs without question, but gets flustered when anyone points it out. He’s gotten used to not handing anything to Tony. They’ve made a game out of trying to find the most ridiculous thing printed about him in the tabloids or on the internet each week, and Clint knows he’s capable of maintaining a good sense of humor about the things people say about him, vicious as some of them can be. But sometimes something Tony does will be so unexpected, so out of the blue, that Clint’s given up trying to predict the man.

So he’s not really that surprised when he walks into one of their communal kitchens one morning and sees Tony and Rhodes making out like horny teenagers, totally ignoring their surroundings. Rhodes has Tony backed against one of the counters and pulled in tight against his own body, hands in his hair, while Tony is gripping handfuls of the back of his shirt. Clint honestly had no clue this was a thing—he’s seen the way the two of them hug when they’ve spent a while away from each other and how they cuddle close on the couch during movie nights, but Clint is like that with Nat, too, it could easily just be a friendship thing. He knows Rhodes just returned from several weeks away and apparently the two of them couldn’t wait.

So he walks by and opens the cupboards like normal, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He doesn’t think there’s any way they don’t know he’s there, but just to be sure, he says loudly, “don’t mind me, I’ll just be here making my breakfast, in my kitchen, you know, where normal people eat food and don’t make their housemates watch their PDA.”

Tony lets go of Rhodes’s shirt with one hand to flip Clint off. The two of them separate a moment later and turn to face Clint, though they’re still pressed close. “You know, technically, it’s _my_ kitchen,” Tony says, a little breathless and a lot smug. Asshole. Clint snorts and tosses a dry piece of cereal from his bowl at Tony, which Rhodes reaches out and snatches, then feeds to Tony. 

Clint makes an exaggerated disgusted noise. “That’s nasty. Get that shit out of my face, I’m trying to eat here.”

Tony rolls his eyes. Rhodes just arches an eyebrow with his expert deadpan expression, highly composed for someone who was just caught trying to suck his best friend’s face off in the kitchen at nine in the morning. But Clint can see the amusement in both their eyes, and something else too. Love, that brightens both their faces and, whatever his token protests, lightens something in Clint too. It’s never bad to see a little more love in the world, and he knows it has to be difficult for someone like Tony to find.

“Fine, we can take this elsewhere, so as to not offend your delicate sensibilities,” Tony says, lightly mocking. Clint shows him a mouthful of half-chewed cereal in return—no one said they can’t be children every once in a while—and then grins at the twin looks of disgust he gets. This time it’s Rhodes who rolls his eyes, grabs Tony’s hand, and pulls him from the room.

Clint stifles a goofy smile into his cereal as they leave the room. He’ll tease Tony mercilessly about this, as is his duty as a friend, but he’s also happy for him. With everything he does for the team, Tony certainly deserves this.

 

**Steve**

Steve considers it his duty as the de facto leader of the Avengers to know what’s going on with all of his team members. It’s also just something he wants to do as a friend. He doesn’t think of himself as the nosy type, but it’s true he wants to know the details of people’s lives more than some. Maybe it’s partially a product of the time he grew up in, but he likes to _talk_ to people, face to face, to sit down and focus his whole attention on someone through a full conversation.

Having this team surrounding him is without a doubt the best thing to happen to him since he was woken up in this time. They support him as much as he supports them, they’re friends and brothers in arms and he couldn’t ask for a better team.

Not that they always make it easy, of course. This is certainly a unique group of people, and they have some pretty serious idiosyncrasies. Faults and flaws and triggers are commonplace among them, but Steve learns to navigate them eventually. It’s something of a personal mission for him.

Tony is definitely the most difficult, but it’s just more of a challenge for Steve. Between the man’s tendency to be contrary just for the sake of being contrary, the ease with which he can push Steve’s buttons, his own eclectic, unpredictable, sometimes contradictory personality, and the simple fact that he spends less time in his own Tower than any of the other Avengers because of his other responsibilities, Steve’s had to work the hardest to learn and understand him.

He can admit that at first, he didn’t see beyond the masks Tony wears in public, and he judged the man based on things he didn’t understand. He saw a spoiled, rich man who used money to get what he wanted and surrounded himself with beautiful women and influential people because he loved the attention. But after letting go of his own biases and really trying to understand Tony, he was honestly horrified to see the incredibly lonely life he leads. Not being able to trust anyone you meet, because they could be using you for your money or power, makes every interaction stressful. It explains a lot about Tony, and Steve thinks it’s awful. No one should have to live like that, automatically suspicious every time anyone is nice to them.

At least Tony has some real, steady friends, both his old ones and now his new team. He might not trust the other Avengers as much as Pepper, Rhodes, or Happy yet, but Steve thinks—hopes—that he at least knows they’re not just using him for his money and tech. The fact that he freely offers both makes it a little more difficult to demonstrate, but still. 

He thought Tony and Pepper were good for each other, what little he saw of them together, and has to admit he was sad when they ended it. He didn’t want to see Tony spiraling or withdrawing after the relationship ended. But they both seemed to handle it fairly well, and it wasn’t Steve’s place to be prying into their personal affairs. He knows Tony and Rhodes have a close friendship, of course, and it’s good to see. But he’s never thought much about Tony’s love life beyond Pepper, and certainly not in conjunction with Rhodes.

It’s not until Tony and Clint go missing that he starts to get a glimpse into the true strength of Tony’s friendship with Rhodes, and suspect that it may be something else as well. The moment they’re sure the two have been taken, Rhodes joins them and goes into such a serious, concentrated state that it’s almost shocking to see. Rhodes is usually very professional—aside from some of the times he comes to the Tower and gets into ridiculous trouble with Tony—but the intensity with which he takes over and starts commanding search operations is a bit scary.

Steve thinks this is a glimpse into what it was like when Tony went missing in Afghanistan. He’s heard a little about it, not a lot, but enough to know that even when everyone else wanted to declare Tony dead and leave it at that, Rhodes wouldn’t let it go, and he’d been right there when they’d found Tony and brought him back. He’s hoping that same pattern holds out now—hopefully without the three-month time frame—because they have no leads or real evidence and they’re down two members, and the situation is looking a little desperate.

It doesn’t take them three months, but it does take a week, and that’s long enough for all of them to be exhausted and on edge. Long enough for a lot of bad to have happened, and for Steve’s mind to practically exhaust its supply of awful scenarios to conjure up. They finally find a lead and track down where Tony and Clint have been taken. All of them are heading out there, even Pepper and Happy and Fury, when the agents they’ve got closing in on the place report an explosion right in the center of it.

Steve’s throat feels dry, he’s prepared to receive grim news and be part of a search for bodies, when he catches sight of Rhodes grinning. “That’s Tony,” Rhodes says, and he sounds so sure that Steve can’t help but feel hopeful, too.

Their vehicles pull up outside one of the outermost buildings opposite the explosion site and they all clamber out, guns drawn, ready to blast their way through guards or anyone else standing between them and getting their teammates back. The civilians among them and the medical teams they’ve got on standby will stay back with some agents to protect them while Steve, Natasha, Bruce, and a group of SHIELD agents search the building. But they’re all still yards from the doors when they burst open and Tony and Clint come stumbling out.

They’re leaning heavily on each other and they’re bruised and battered, but they’re alive, and Steve feels a smile splitting his face as their entire group rushes forward. The two separate unsteadily as the whole team moves forward to meet them. Clint is bleeding heavily down one side of his face and he wobbles like maybe his leg or ankle is broken. The second he catches sight of Natasha, he drops to his knees, and she’s at his side in a flash, kneeling down along with him and cradling his face in her hands, speaking softly to him. A medical team starts moving toward them.

Tony approaches the rest of the group on his own two feet, though he’s limping. He has several multicolored bruises on his face, his shirt is so torn it’s practically gone, and he’s dripping blood from several places, evidently wounded somewhere they can’t see. Though Pepper, Happy, Steve, and Bruce are standing right there as well, Tony doesn’t even seem to see them. He staggers several steps forward to close the distance and throws himself into Rhodes’s arms. Pepper and Happy actually step back like they’re expecting this, concerned but giving them space, and Steve and Bruce follow their lead.

Tony clings tightly to Rhodes for a few seconds before his legs give out. Rhodes bends down and smoothly, easily, scoops him up, cradling him to his chest. The intensity of the look in his eyes makes Steve step back like the others. It’s clear Rhodes will take care of Tony. He carries him over to the other medical team and never leaves his side.

On their way to the hospital in their own vehicles, Steve thinks about the interaction and wonders about Tony and Rhodes, and starts to suspect. Their friendship is strong, yes, but the look in Rhodes’s eyes when he’d held Tony… that was something Steve hasn’t seen a lot in his lifetime. The way he’d cradled him in his arms was more like a lover than a brother.

They don’t have to wait too long before they get confirmation that both Clint and Tony will be fine, at least physically. They’ve got an extensive list of injuries between them, and neither of them are talking much about what happened to them in the last week. The agents that cleared the facility where they were held report some horrifying evidence, but no one wants to push Clint or Tony to talk about it right now.

Nat is with Clint most of the time, she keeps him calm and relaxed and stops him from trying to break out of the hospital and limp to freedom on his broken ankle. She kicks everyone else out of the room shortly after the team arrives so that Clint can have a private phone conversation with someone, maybe a doctor or a friend. 

Likewise, Rhodes hasn’t left Tony’s side. He’s the only person Tony will talk to about what happened, and he’s the only one who can calm Tony down when he wakes up panting and wild-eyed, frantic and irritating his broken ribs and carved up back with his heaving breaths. Rhodes keeps everyone back and holds him, talks him down from the edges of panic attacks like no one else can. 

By this point Steve’s nearly sure about them, but it’s confirmed the next day when he stops by Tony’s room to check on him and bring over some of the tech Tony’s requested in his better moments. There’s a doctor and a nurse in the room, beginning an examination of Tony’s back. Rhodes is sitting on the bed in front of Tony, hands low on his sides. Tony makes a few small, pained noises as the doctor prods at him, but Rhodes soothes him through the painful exam, stroking at his arms and sides and whispering to him. 

Tony’s eyes are squeezed shut, his face twisted in discomfort. He flinches at another manipulation, and Rhodes moves his hands up to cradle the sides of Tony’s face, pressing their foreheads together. Tony lets out a breath and leans into him, and Rhodes leans forward to place the softest, most tender kiss that Steve’s ever seen on his lips.

Suddenly feeling like he’s intruding on a private moment, Steve quietly backs out of the room. He’ll make sure that there’s someone regularly in to give Rhodes a chance to get out and eat something, shower, sleep—though he’ll do that in Tony’s room, there should still be someone there awake in case anything happens—but he knows Tony’s in good hands. It’s clear he has someone caring, loyal, and devoted who won’t leave his side for anything, who’ll do anything and everything necessary to care for him. A partner, a lover. A soulmate.

**Author's Note:**

> That was the cheesiest of cheesy endings…
> 
> So I couldn’t resist just the tiniest bit of bitterness in Natasha’s section, about her “assignment” to Tony and Fury’s manipulative bullshit in IM2. I didn’t believe his “I’m just an old man who cares about you” crap in AoU for one second. He’s always been a manipulative bastard, even if he occasionally has good intentions. If he really gave a shit about Tony, he wouldn’t have used his illness against him and sent Natasha in to spy on him instead of, you know, giving him the potentially lifesaving information and short-term cure they were withholding from a dying man just because they wanted the opportunity to manipulate him. Fury’s way too smart to believe that any of that bullshit report on Tony was true, which means it was all a purposeful attempt to use Tony’s deep-seated desire for the validation his father never gave him against him. Of course, I don’t think Natasha was so innocent in the whole thing either, but for fluffy story purposes, she was. Okay, rant over, sorry.


End file.
